Yankee Brew News Archive

A New Tradition is Brewing at Vermont's Golden Dome

Originally Published: 12/96

By: Tom Ayres

The former granite shed alongside the Winooski River in Montpelier, Vermont is the perfect place to nurture a new Vermont tradition.

The granite industry, with its massive quarries and skilled stone carvers, has long been a vibrant facet of life in central Vermont. Granite from Rock of Ages and other Green Mountain State quarries is renowned throughout the world. So are the talents of generations of Italian carvers who have worked the stone with care.

Now a new industry is rapidly emerging to build on the state's widespread reputation for quality: craft brewing. Among the newest practitioners are a pair of central Vermonters who fervently hope their "Vermont-style amber ale" will become the traditional beer of choice for local brew lovers. Just as Yankee Brew News went t

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The system, including a redwood-clad mash tun, gleaming copper kettle, and six jacketed, stainless steel conical fermenters, was used most recently at burgeoning Star Brewing in Portland, Oregon. Fitzpatrick and Dowling "picked it up through the brewing grapevine" when Star expanded earlier this year. It typifies the duo's no-nonsense, do-it-yourself approach to a time-honored craft. So, too, does the work they've done on the 2,500-square-foot brewery, renovating the old granite shed and fire engine factory from scratch entirely by themselves. (The building allows for expansion to 5,000 square feet as Golden Dome grows.)

"We'd like to stay small. We want to concentrate on making a good quality beer for a select number of people," says Golden Dome cofounder Dowling. Dowling projects that the brewery will operate at about a 1,500-barrel capacity for the first year. "Long-term plans call for us to max out at 10,000 barrels," he adds, embracing the "small-is-beautiful" ethos central to many Vermont microenterprises.

Fitzpatrick followed an increasingly familiar path to the world of microbrewing. He started out as a homebrewer, cut his teeth as a staff member at two homebrew shops formerly operated by Something's Brewing in Burlington and Montpelier, then headed out to Davis to study under brewing guru Michael Lewis. When he returned to New England after the West Coast sojourn, he hooked up with Dowling at Something's Brewing and began planning for Golden Dome. Two years later, the brewery's flagship beer is slaking holiday thirsts in central Vermont.

Ceres Back 40 Amber Ale is a smooth, medium-bodied ale. Nutty and slightly sweet, it's balanced with clean hop bitterness and a subtle hint of citrus. Fitzpatrick, who has been perfecting the recipe since his pre-Davis days as a high-volume homebrewer, hopes it will find widespread acceptance in his hometown and the surrounding environs. Grinning, he politely refuses to place the beer in any known style niche, insisting it's really a "Vermont-style" brew all its own.

The new beer is now available on draught in several area on-premise outlets. Local stores are also featuring it in 22-ounce bottles. Refillable half-gallon "growlers," as well as five-gallon and half-barrel kegs, can be purchased at the brewery.

Early in the new year, Golden Dome hopes to introduce another beer in a style that, as far as I can recall, has never been made in Vermont before. Fitzpatrick promises that Double Ringer Stout will be a rich, sweetish "milk" stout in the tradition of England's Mackeson.

The Golden Dome Brewing Company is located at 5 Pioneer Street, just off the Barre-Montpelier Road, less than five minutes from downtown Montpelier. It offers Golden Dome beers and breweriana through an on-site retail store. Samples are served at an attractive bar gleaned from the New England Culinary Institute's former Elm Street Cafe.

Fitzpatrick and Dowling also plan to open an outdoor boardwalk and "German-style" beer garden along the adjacent Winooski River next summer. At press time, plans for a grand opening celebration were in the works. To find out more about what's on tap at Golden Dome, call the brewery at (802) 223-3290.